Ann Landers and the Grateful Adoptee

I'm going through a period of purging, as I prepare to leave my apartment and graduate to "homeowner".  While cleaning out my closet, I came across a bright purple folder and immediately recognized it.  I'd seen it many times before as a child - it lived at the bottom of my mother's desk drawer.  At some point after my grandfather passed away, it was given to me to sort through, since the top layers of paper were his - "The Well Stocked Bookshelf": a list of every book he had ever read from 1950 until the year he died.  

But beneath the stack of recommended books were more familiar papers.  Report cards from Hempstead Elementary, letters to and from my teachers, construction paper book reports - and newspaper clippings.  At some point, this folder had been a catch all from my much younger days.  Now, it's a haunting reminder that my status as an adoptee was always prevalent in my life - even before I recognized it.

"Joanna takes an active part in class discussions and participates in activities -

she takes pride in her work, but often looses focus.  At times, it

seems that she is not present.  We will work with her to redirect

her focus and improve organization.  - Higgins, 93"

"Joanna understands concepts and skills taught.  She seems to enjoy

reading and has a vivid imagination.  She struggles with concentration,

and often seems to be daydreaming.  - Folb, 94"

I remember my daydreams from those long days in class.  My thoughts were always elsewhere, always with my Mother.  Sometimes she was a Princess.  Sometimes she was a little girl, like me.  I would watch the cars go by and wonder if she was riding in one of them.  There was another teacher at the school - a librarian.  She had blue eyes, too, and I would pretend that she was my Mother - that she had taken the job at my school to be closer to me.  

Beneath the disappointing report cards, my mother had saved clippings from the newspaper.  I recognized the format immediately - Dear Ann Landers.  I knew the name, but little else.  My stomach turned as I realized what these were.

"Dear Ann,

I am saddened every time I read about an adopted person

who is trying to locate a birth mother - even more so

when contact is made and the child is rejected.  I offer

this advice to all such persons: Adoption is a binding,

lifetime contract.  Biological parents release children

for adoption for valid reasons.  The primary one is to

give them a better life than the birth parents can offer.

If one of my two adopted children ever wants to contact

a birth mother, I will offer this advice: She gave you a

life and parents, possibly at great personal sacrifice.

What more could you ask of her?  Don't tarnish that

gift by meddling in her private life after all these years.

Respect her and pray for her well being as I do.  The 

best gift you can give her now is the gift of privacy.

- Thankful in S.C.

Dear S.C.,

Beautiful.  Thanks for speaking so eloquently for

those who cannot speak for themselves."

I'm sorry, but who gave her the right to speak for ANYONE but herself?  But that's really it, isn't it?  She's speaking for herself - thinking of only herself.  How can she - or anyone - know what the birthmother wants?  And more importantly, though least considered - what about what the child wants?  If I had been brave enough to talk to my mother about searching and she had responded the way this woman suggests, I would be heartbroken.  Thanks, Ann, but I can very well speak for myself, thank you - and this is a far cry from what I'm saying.

"Dear Ann Landers,

My older sister bore a son out of wedlock, left

instructions that he be put up for adoption, and then

jumped off a bridge.  I followed her instructions and

gave "Barry" to a childless family I knew would love

him and raise him well.  The understanding was that 

our family would cut all ties with the child and never

let him know of his history.  This was my sister's last

wish.

My worst fears were realized when I received a

letter from Barry, now age 18.  It seems that he dug

around and found out his birth mother's hometown.

He then went there, began asking questions, and

located some distant cousins.  They took him all over

and even introduced him to one of his mother's

high school teachers.  He hounded me with 

phone calls, insisting that I must know who his 

father is.

Finally I told Barry to leave me alone and that he

had gone against his the wishes of his mother's

family by digging into the past.  

Ann, keep telling adopted persons to be grateful

for what they have and not to poke around looking

for their "real family".  They of course are hoping

that the family they dig up will be rich and beautiful,

eager to open their hearts and their homes to them.

That is what happens when you watch too much TV.

- No Name, No State, 

and Mailed While On Vacation

Dear No Name, No State,

Your letter underscores the message I've been trying

to get across for years - such family reunions are

very painful.  Thanks for saying it far better

than I could.

Yes.  Yes, that's exactly it.  The gaps in my family tree don't matter.  My medical history doesn't matter.  My story - my origins - don't matter.  The hole in my soul doesn't matter.  I just really wanted my Mother to be rich and beautiful.  That's my main concern.  

I don't know what I am more upset about - these idiots raising adopted children with their own twisted, bizarre agendas, the fact that these responses were read by hundreds of thousands and accepted as normal and true and valid - or the fact that this is what my mother was clinging to.  Part of me is heartbroken for her.  I can imagine her feverishly clipping each adoption-related correspondence out of the papers and stashing them away.  I wonder if they brought her comfort.  I wonder if she would read them over and over and tell herself that everything was fine - that these "experts" had it right - that she had it right.

But then I imagine six year old Joanna finding these, reading them, and feeling guilty for her daydreams.  I imagine her asking questions about her Mother, and being told not to think about those people because they gave her away - and she has no right to meddle.  I imagine her tucking herself away, closing herself in her closet where she hides, and trying desperately not to think of Her, because she should be grateful that she was chosen.

This has to stop.  

setting fires to our insides for fun

“Are you happy you were adopted?”  This is without a doubt the most frequently asked question of me.  It comes in many shapes and forms, but always, they’re digging for this seemingly simple kernel of information, as if everything else I have ever said or felt is made irrelevant by the answer.

“Yeah, but imagine where you’d be if you were never adopted.”

“But think of what your life might be like if you had stayed with Her.”

“But you love your adoptive family, don’t you?”

“Would you rather have been aborted?”

First of all, rude.  Secondly, my answer is a hard truth no one actually wants to hear.  Adoption is the worst-best thing that’s ever happened to me.  And I would rather be dead than adopted.

“But imagine where you’d be if you were never adopted.”  I imagine where I would be if I had never been adopted almost every day.  I imagine waking up in the same house as my Mother, getting out of bed and going into the kitchen where my Mother sits with her coffee and cigarette.  I imagine breathing in her smell - smoke and leather and faint traces of perfume and hairspray - and not having to dwell on it, not having to force myself to pause and memorize it, because I live with it.  That smell will come home after work, the same as the day before, and the same as the day to come.  

“But think of what your life might be like if you had stayed with Her.”  Maybe I wouldn’t have had the opportunities in education that I did with my adoptive family if I had stayed with Her.  Maybe I would have chosen a different career.  Maybe I would have become a mother myself.  But maybe not.  

The point is, asking me to imagine ‘where I would be’ if I had not been placed for adoption is pointless - and insulting.  As if I hadn’t thought to imagine it before.  As if my every empty thought is not instantly filled with Her.

“But you love your adoptive family, don’t you?”  I do.  But I could have just as easily never met them, never known them, and never loved them.  I love my friends - but had our paths not crossed, I could have just as easily never known them, never loved them.  Had I never been adopted, I might not have known them.  So it is not a matter of choosing to love one over the other.  They never would have existed to me.

“Would you rather have been aborted?”  Again, first of all, rude.  Actually, I’ll skip the ‘rude’ and jump straight to a big ‘fuck you’.  I’ve been asked this more times than I care to admit - most often by ‘friends’.  

Existing in the ‘Christian Community’ as an adoptee is a special kind of hell.  I am expected to be grateful.  I am expected to see and accept and be thankful for ‘the bigger picture’.  I am expected to celebrate when church families come home from their missions with someone else’s baby in tow, rescued from some poverty-stricken, war-torn country.  I am expected to smile through baby dedications, to offer myself as a shining beacon - a poster child for the successful outcome of adoption.  God bless us, everyone.

In reality, I struggle daily to reconcile my faith and what I know with what I feel adoption has done in me and to me, and feeling like a victim of God’s plan.  The hard truth, and the hard answer that no one actually wants to hear - despite asking this disgusting question - is that I would rather be dead.  I would rather have been aborted than have to live on this carousel.  A constant circle of questioning and anger and acceptance and peace, over and over and over again.  I would rather be dead than to know the sick knots in my stomach every time someone excitedly announces that So-and-So adopted a baby and asks me how wonderful that is, and aren’t I so grateful that I was, too.  I would rather be dead than have to hold back tears every time I overhear a conversation about deciding whether or not it’s time to tell their child that they’re adopted.  I would rather be dead than know what I know.  

And I would rather be dead than have to answer these questions.

the whole {half} truth

Adoption itself is an entity cloaked in secrecy and lies.  Original names and dates and places are blotted out and new identities are issued without hesitation.  Agencies (who should and often do know better) and Adoptive parents who are none-the-wiser to the long-term ramifications are eased into believing that keeping the whole truth secret is best for the child.

Secrecy for the sake of comfort is par for the course more often than not.

Knowing this, I don't know why, then, I am still so surprised and betrayed by my birthmother's lies.  I have come to terms with my adoptive family's discomfort with my own adoption and reunion, and thus have come to understand and forgive them for the secrecy they forced upon the subject.  Coming to terms with my birthmother's lies and secrecy for the sake of her comfort, however, seems impossible.  Ten years of reunion seems to me to be plenty of time to mention two siblings, also placed for adoption after me.  Ten years gave her 88,000 hours to take out a piece of paper and confess, and help me understand her and let me know that there are others in the world who share my blood.  Of every betrayal adoption has inflicted upon me, hers is the most devastating.

I don't know how to respond except with silence.  I wish that cutting her off hurt her as much as it hurts me.  

"thank you, and we're prepared." - unprepared adoptive mother

There are plenty of things that pop up in the day to day existence of an adoptee that are triggering (not unlike PTSD responses), but personally, one of the more emotionally charged triggers is discovering the intent to adopt among friends and family.

I'm frequently asked if I'm anti-adoption.  And somewhere between clenching my jaw and resisting the urge to reach over and smack the challenger's smug smile off their face, I calmly answer, "of course not."  I don't believe that being strictly anti-adoption is realistic as a broad spread position.  Of course there are circumstances where children are truly orphaned.  There are 400,00 children in the foster care system - 100,000 of those are eligible for permanent placement through adoption - and they should be placed.  That being said, what I am is anti supply and demand of babies.  I am anti coercion of birth mothers and fathers.  I am anti societal stigma which subtly forces women to relinquish when relinquishment would otherwise never be considered.  And perhaps most passionately, I am anti-adoption ignorance.

"Thank you, and we're prepared," was the gifted advisory reply, spoken by one ignorant party to another when one lamented that upon publicly announcing her desire to adopt she was met with concerned resistance (feigned or otherwise).  Listed among these comments of concern were: "adopted children have issues", "an adopted child would throw off the balance in your biological family" - and my personal favorite, "you don't know what you're getting into."  You're damn right you don't know what you're getting into.

The most unfortunate part of this entire encounter is the not-yet-adopted child who is already suffering at the hand of each well meaning voice in the conversation.  And that child is what triggers the most deep rooted, sickening anxiety in me.  I am the adopted child/adult with "issues".  I am the adopted child/adult who throws off the balance in my adoptive family.  I am the full-grown result of an adoptee being raised by ignorant adoptive parents.  And I am every adoptive parent's worst nightmare.

Upon my second arrival into a mother's arms, I was already five weeks old and suffering greatly as a result of the Primal Wound.  I refused to take a bottle - something that my family remembers and attributes to being strong-willed - which is more widely understood now as being a PTSD-like reaction of numbness.

Following the cues of my adoptive parents, talking about my birth family and my adoption were subjects that were better left undiscussed.  More than undiscussed, they were buried deep and cemented over.  An unwillingness to address their own infertility issues transferred to an unwillingness to acknowledge that I came from anywhere else.  As far as they were concerned (I say 'were' because reuniting with my birth family has forced them to budge somewhat on this subject) I didn't exist before the airport pass-off.  Never mind the five weeks of limbo between my birth and adoption.

I've confessed before that I was eight years old the first time I tried to end my own life.  Two years shy of a decade on this earth and I was already tired.  I was already worn down by feeling like an intruder - an imposter - in my own family.  Beyond physical differences and appearance, I thought differently, I spoke differently, I laughed differently.  I felt like I had no foundation, like I was floating through life with no purpose of direction.  While my eight year old self's attempt was weak at best, the desire didn't go away.  That was something I struggled deeply with well into my college years.  It's something I still have to fight, daily.  It's something that anti-depressants can't cure - because it's not a chemical imbalance.  It's an existential imbalance.  Suicide rates in adopted adolescents are higher than in non adopted adolescents.  There's something to that.  Why aren't we paying more attention to that?

I firmly believe that all of this could have been avoided by a willingness to openly talk about adoption - and the fact that it is a traumatic experience.  If nothing else, it could have saved an eight year old from feeling hopeless enough to end her life.

Regardless of the adoptee's experience growing up, whether or not their adoptive families were open and supportive and informed - the loss of one's mother is trauma.  If that was more widely understood and accepted by adoptive families, the potential for healing is exponentially greater.  Existing - especially as an adolescent - as a product of two worlds, with two identities and two realities - is a challenge.  And it's a challenge that adoptive parents should be ready for.

both sides now

I have been on both sides of the search process.  In 2005 I began my search for my birthmother, and thanks to one super-sleuthing wonderful friend, I found her only months later.  I realize how lucky I am - I know there are people who searched for years with no result;  I know there are those who searched only to find that their loved ones had passed away.  I didn't have to wait for anything.  I didn't have time to dissect my own motives, or to think about what I would say once I found her.  I threw my search out into the black hole of the internet, and expected nothing would come back to me.

Of course, however unexpectedly, it did.  Our reunion was (and is) a whirlwind of emotion, with an abundance of good, bad, and ugly.  But regardless of the ups and downs, the simple truth that I had brought this search on myself, kept me somewhat grounded and level-headed.  I initiated.  I opened the door.  I said, "Yes.  For better or for worse, I want to know you."  I felt more in control - even if it was an illusion.

This year, I received an email from someone asking if there was any chance that I could be his sister.  He gave me details about my own adoption, knew my birth-name, and my birthmother's.  The dates, details and information all made sense...except for the fact that in the ten years since we had been reunited, my birthmother had never mentioned having other children.  In fact, she had made several comments that would imply just the opposite.  The air went out of my lungs.  This time, I hadn't been the one to open the door.  I had been found.

Once I confronted my birthmother with the recently uncovered truth, and she confirmed that not only did I have one - but two - brothers who were both placed for adoption years after me, the difficulty of settling into a new normal began.

This particular side of the search process, still being so new, is difficult to articulate.  Unfortunately, the similarities between the two experiences included a lack of familial support.  Though I searched for my birthmother alone, without telling many (any?) people, once we connected, I confided in a few close friends - and ultimately, my family.  Not a single friendship remains from that time in my life.  Each 'friend' in whom I trusted my innermost fears and insecurities about reunion left shortly after.  One friend - one who I thought was the closest to me at the time - refused to accompany me to the airport to meet my birthmother for the first time.  She "didn't want to be a crutch", when a crutch is exactly what I needed.

Family support in my reunion(s) is certainly lacking.  My adoptive mother once remarked, during my initial reunion with my birthmother, that "This is all too weird for me".  A consequence that should have been considered prior to adopting, perhaps?  My siblings are removed from the process entirely, choosing to ignore the fact that I am adopted.  They don't ask about my birth family.  They don't care to know anything about that side of my life.  When I was recently contacted by my brother, my adoptive siblings' response was one of annoyance.  This was just another interruption in their existence at the fault of my adoption.

Three years ago, their reaction would have sent me spiraling.  Now, I'm numb to the lack of interest.  I have resolved to floating through this reunion fog solo, trying desperately to minimize the damage of my sharp edges.

choose her a name she will answer to

One of the first questions I asked my birth mother when we were reunited in 2005 was whether or not she had given me a name when I was born.  

I never felt that “Joanna” suited me.  I’m sure everyone goes through a period in their childhood where they hate their name.  I think it’s a part of growing up, of finding your identity.  My adoptive parents gave me my name to honor my maternal grandparents, Joseph and Josephine.  My adoptive mother has admitted that she was hoping that I would be a bit of a tom boy - that I would play sports as they both had, and that I would take on the nickname “Jo”.  Quite the opposite.

In middle school (my group of friends will attest to this) I spent a decent amount of time trying on new names.  One week I would ask to be called “Brenda”.  Another week I wanted to be “Monica”.  I tried over and over again to find something that I felt “fit”.  I never succeeded.

When I was told that I had been named “Jade” when I was born, I felt relief.  I felt peace.  I immediately began to internally identify as Jade, while Joanna began to take a backseat.  And there began a brand new phase of identity crisis as it pertained to my adoption.

I thought seriously about changing my name legally for many months, but several things held me back.  First and foremost, I knew it would hurt my adoptive family.  I imagined the conversation that would need to happen and multiple scenarios, and not a single one of them allowed for a pleasant outcome.  My mother would be devastated.  She would see it as a personal insult.  That alone wasn’t worth the risk.  I also knew that the friend I’d had for years, who grew up along with me knowing me as Joanna, would not transition easily.  Many of them wouldn’t understand the need for the change.  Ultimately, there was a general lack of support, and I didn’t feel a desperate enough need to make the change legally anyhow.

So, now Jade is something of an alter-ego.  Jade is an artist in the purest form.  Jade is responsible for my most free-spirited decisions in life.  And while there may not be anyone who calls me by that name, it’s enough for me that she exists within Joanna.

born with the moon in cancer

choose her a name she will answer to

call her green and the winters will not fade her

call her green for the children who've made her

little green, be a gypsy dancer

he went to california

hearing that everything's warmer there

so you write him a letter and say, "her eyes are blue"

he sends you a poem and she's lost to you

little green, he's a non-conformer

child with a child, pretending

weary of lies you are sending home

so you sign all the papers in the family name

you're sad and you're sorry but you're not ashamed

little green, have a happy ending

just a little green

like the color when the spring is born

there'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow

just a little green

like the nights when the northern lights perform

there'll be icicles and birthday clothes

and sometimes there'll be sorrow

National Adoption Month: Day 22

I never felt that I fit in well with my family.  Even when I was little I knew that I was different from them.  They were chemists and engineers and CFOs and CEOs.  I was an artist and a dancer.  They were a proud family of “straight A’s” and if I could scratch by with a C I was thrilled.

Grades were always a point of strife in our home.  Days when report cards were sent out were often spent elsewhere.  I would avoid the inevitable conversation about “living up to my potential” and “applying myself” as long as I could, seeking refuge from disappointed faces at a friend or neighbor’s house.  When I was ten, ‘disappointed faces’ turned into something uglier.  

When it’s said that your life flashes before your eyes in moments of perceived extreme danger, there is no exaggeration.  I don’t remember the specific trigger.  I know that report cards had been issued a few days prior, and since then I had come home with incomplete homework and a painfully low quiz grade.  The teacher had offered to let me re-do the homework for half credit, which apparently was enough of a point increase to make it worth trying.  I sat on the floor of the family room, at my father’s feet, while he slowly explained and re-explained whatever problem I was working on.  It had been a grueling two hours since I first sat down with it, and he was reaching his limit.  I pulled at the short pink threads of the carpet and let out a heavy sigh.  Not only was I completely disinterested in the topic, but I was also completely defeated.  “I hate this.”

I don’t know how I moved from Point A to Point B, but my next immediate memory is being pinned to the wall across the room, my father standing over me with a rage I hadn’t seen in him before.  I was shaking while he screamed inches from my face.  He hit me hard enough to drop me down to my knees, and there was a moment of peace there - like the eye of the storm.  From my new position I could see my mother ushering my little sister out of the room, then returning, only to cower in the doorway.  He grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me back up to my feet.  He was still shouting, but none of those words ever stuck with me.  I was staring passed him, and at my mother.  I’d never hated her before that night.  She did nothing to stop it.  She said nothing.  She didn’t fight for me.  

Alone in my room that night, I moved my hand to cover my face and felt burning.  I got up and looked in the mirror.  The top of my eye was open and bleeding.  I found a washcloth and a water bottle in the room and took care of myself - there was no way I was voluntarily leaving my room again that night.  I laid there, holding that stupid cloth over my face, oozing hate for both of them.  I hated him for everything he was.  I hated his job.  I hated his brain.  I hated math.  And I hated her for being weak.  I hated her for not standing up for her ten year old daughter.  I hated her because I didn’t trust her anymore.

No one woke me up for school the next morning - or the morning after that.  I would have enjoyed that a bit more if home didn’t feel like a prison of tension and nerves.  

After that, my mother described my father and I as having “clashing personalities”.  Not that he stepped over the line.  Not that he hurt me in the deepest possible way.  Not that my trust in my parents had been obliterated.  Not that our relationship would never recover.  Just simply our personalities clashed.  As if this was a common problem between fathers and adolescent daughters.

Eventually, it stopped.  Eventually, when it escalated enough that an outsider was brought in, mandated counseling happened.  And then college happened.  And I never moved back.  I’ve forgiven him by moving on.  I tell myself, and the few others who are cursed with a close friendship with me, that it was a different time.  He was a different man.  I’ve forgiven her.  I’ve recognized and forgiven her weakness.  But trust is a thing of the past.  Trust is a fantasy from childhood.